A Nightmare On Baudway
by Nullzilla
Summary: A ReBoot version of A Nightmare On Elm Street. The children of the ReBoot cast are being hunted in their nightmares by a ghostly virus, out for revenge...


**A Nightmare On Baudway**

**by Nullzilla

* * *

**

**The First Cycle**

Sherry ran through the dark hallways, the sound of her own breathing, machines grinding and clicking and the dark, sinister laugh that followed her the only things she could hear. She didn't know where she was or how she got there, but she knew that she had to escape, because he was coming. She didn't know who, or what he was, she hadn't really seen him, yet she knew he was there. Behind her, in front of her, everywhere.

This place, this... _(world, reality?_ Neither really seemed appropriate but it was close enough)... it was tainted with his presence. She could hear him, scraping the claws on things. Metal was the worst, because it made a horrible shrieking, squeaking sound. Sherry turned a corner and continued to run down the hallway, slowing now to catch her breath, despite the fact that she wasn't really tired in spite of her running. These hallways of grey metal never seemed to end, they just went on and on, ever changing, never stopping.

She brushed a lock of her seaweed green hair out of her eyes as she came to a stop. She looked behind her to see if he was near, but she didn't see or feel him close to her at the moment. She looked back the way she had been heading and saw that another hallway split off to the right. She was deciding whether she would keep going straight or follow the path to the right when she hear a crashing sound behind her. She turned and saw something knocking over several canisters of compressed air leaning against one of the walls.

She immediately turned around and ran for the hallway to the right, turned the corner and came to a dead end in front of a furnace, the awful baying sound of the thing she had seen echoing in the hall behind her. When she stopped in front of the dead end, she focused and realized that what she had seen knocking over those canisters had only been a cybersheep. She didn't know how a cybersheep had come to be here, but she now realized that she needed to calm down, as this whole situation was making her panicky over any sound she heard or shadow she saw and that could be dangerous.

She closed her eyes and tried to get a grip when the squealing sound of the claws scraping over metal came again and she turned around to the sound of deep, evil laughter, only to see the tips of yellow claws disappear around the corner of the hallway that she had just been running down. A distorted shadow on the opposite wall moved out of sight. Sherry fought the urge to scream with all her might. He had walked right past her, down the hall she had been running through. Those claws had passed her while her back had been turned.

She wasn't going to run anymore. It wasn't doing any good. Now her back was to the furnace against the wall. She would face the open hallway so nothing could come from behind her, and wait until she was sure he was gone. Then she would leave and oh, was that a hand on her shoulder, it was and she could feel breathing on the back of her neck. She turned and looked into the long face shining in silhouette against the furnace and the right hand was raised. The big claws, shining yellow, coming down at her and the laughing, the dark laughter echoing and she was struggling with the sheets and-

"Nooooo!" she screamed as she sat up in her bed. Her bed. Her room. Not in the hallways. No furnace. No machines. No laughing and no evil man or whatever it had been. Just a nightmare.

She started to slow down her breathing and she heard her parents coming down the hall to her room. Her bedroom door opened and her mother and father rushed in, her mother's arms held out to her.

"Oh Sherry, are you alright?" her mother asked her. She put her arms around her mother's shoulders and hugged her, happy to be awake and safe.

"I'm alright mom. It was just a bad dream." Her mother held her face, the seashell she kept in her hair reflecting the moon screensaver coming in from the window and adding a peaceful shine to her room.

"Are you sure, sweetie?"

She nodded. "Yes mom, I'm fine. It was just a dream. I'm fine now."

Her mother smiled. "Okay. If you need anything let me know, okay."

Sherry nodded. "I will mom. I promise." Her mother kissed her forehead.

"Goodnight. And no more bad dreams." She stood up, motioned for her father to follow, and walked out of the room. She always treated her like a child when she talked to Sherry while she was in her bed, but this time Sherry didn't mind.

Her father stayed in the room a moment longer, his arms crossed, his green muscles powerfully flexed even when in such a casual stance. Concern was in his one original eye.

"You sure you're okay, princess?" He asked her, the rarely used gentle tone of his voice soothing.

Sherry nodded. "Yes daddy. Like I told mom, it was just a dream." Her father's eyes, both original and artificial, narrowed.

"Some dream judging from _that_." he said with a slight nod in her direction. Sherry looked down and saw that there was a scratch, no, _three_ scratches in her nightdress. The fabric had been ripped right through as if it had been done with a very sharp knife But the fact that there were three of them, all parallel to each other, suggested- (claws). No. That couldn't be. Then she remembered the last part of her nightmare, those claws on that large hand, pointed at her, coming down at her. At her stomach. But that had only been a dream. It wasn't real. It couldn't be. Right?!

Her father frowned. "Either you're going to half to clip your fingernails or you have to stop that kind of dreaming. One or the other. Goodnight, princess." Her father turned and walked to her bedroom door.

"Goodnight, daddy." Sherry said as he shut the door.

Immediately Sherry turned and grab the starfish off the wall. It had been one of her mother's throwing weapons that she no longer had use for. She had given it to Sherry as a lucky charm when she was young and Sherry had always held it with her when she was having bad dreams. She had not used it in hours. Had grown out of it. But she held it with her now, hoping it brought the same comfort it had when she was little.

It was a long time before she fell asleep again, the starfish clutched in her hand. And before she slipped into unconsciousness, the image of three little girls, one a zero binome, another a one binome, and the third a sprite, all jumping rope, popped strangely into her head. They were singing some strange song or nursery rhyme as they jumped rope. And once they had finished their song, the image was gone from her head. She didn't know where it came from or what it meant. And although she didn't dream anymore that night as she slept, the song the three girls had been singing continued to echo in her head.

"One, two, Meggy's coming for you.

Three, four, file-lock your door.

Five, six, you're in quite a fix.

Seven, eight, gonna stay up late.

Nine, ten, never sleep again."

* * *

Glen's car pulled into the parking space and he turned off the engine. Sherry got out the back seat, while her cousin, Tab, and Tab's boyfriend Glen, both got out the front, all of them carrying their school books. Glen took his surfboard out of the trunk. Sherry continued to tell them about her nightmare.

"He was so scary. When I woke up it seemed like he was still in the room with me." Tab's face showed concern for her cousin.

"Sounds like a real bogeyman. One, two, Meggy's coming for you." Sherry nodded and fell into step beside them as they walked towards their morning classes.

"Yeah that's what it reminded me of, that old jump-rope song. It was the worst nightmare I ever had, you wouldn't believe it.".

Tab looked down at the ground. "Matter of fact, I had a bad dream last night myself." she said. A voice from behind made them all jump.

"I had a dream last night, Sherry. And your name was written all over it, if you know what I mean." Sherry turned her head and scowled at her boyfriend, Steve, who had snuck up on them. Then she smirked.

"There's six letters in my name, Steve. How could there be room in your brain for six letters?" Tab and Glen started giggling. Steve fell back a step, his orange face frowning.

He stuck out his fist and responded, "Hey, up yours with a twirling lawnmower.". He then straightened his leather jacket and headed off to his class. Sherry playfully stuck her tongue out at him as he went.

"Steve says the sweetest things. Though he stills seems upset about our argument last cycle." she said to her friends.

Tab grinned. "He's nuts about you."

Sherry's face had taken on a dark look again. "Yeah, nuts." She said, no longer in a very cheerful mood. "Anyway, its hard to believe that I was even able to go back to sleep." She stopped outside the doors to the main school building and turned to Tab. "So what did you dream?" she asked her.

Tab shook her head. "Forget it Sherry, the point is that everyone has a bad dream now and then. Its no big deal."

Glen nodded and spoke in his southern accent, "Yeah, next time you having one, just tell yourself that its only a dream, right while you're havin' it. Do that and you'll wake right up. At least it always works for me." He kissed Tab goodbye, threw down his surfboard, hopped on and took off towards the gym. Something about what he'd said made Sherry think for a moment before calling out after him.

"Hey! Did you have a nightmare too?!" But Glen was too far away now to answer, if he even heard. Sherry turned to Tab.

"Maybe we're going to have a big upgrade. They say things get really weird just before." Tab smiled and led her inside to their class.

Later that night, Sherry, Tab and Glen were all sitting in the living room of Sherry's home. Although only one light was on, the room actually seemed brighter from the static glow of Glen's blonde hair.

"Thanks for coming over you guys. When my mom said that she and dad were going to the SuperComputer for two cycles I almost died." Tab laughed a little at that.

"No problem Sherry. Tabby and Glen to the rescue!" Sherry looked at Glen.

"I can't believe _your_ mother is letting you stay here. Madame Overprotective is actually letting her precious little boy stay at another house for a whole night. And with, not one, but_ two_ girls." Glen rolled his eyes.

"Don't jinx it. She'll probably vidwindow me any nanosecond now."

As if on cue, a vidwindow opened with Mouse's image in it. "Glen, honey, how's things goin'?" she asked.

Glen responded, "Mom, I'm fine. I am 1.7, ya know. I can handle m'self for one full nightcycle."

Mouse nodded. "Yeah, I know, but you can't never tell, 'specially with you teenagers. How you gals doin'?"

Tab waved. "Hi Mouse. We're all fine here."

Sherry nodded. "Yeah, thanks for letting Glen stay with us tonight."

Mouse raised a finger. "Well you ladies just remember; if my lil' Glen there tries anythang... ungentleman-like, yall just let me know and I'll tan his hide!" Sherry and Tab laughed while Glen's purplish face grew even darker as he blushed. Tab smiled at Mouse.

"Its okay, Mouse. I actually hope he does get a little bold. I've been wondering if he was ever going to start becoming a man, or if I'd have to keep helping him cross the street for the rest of his life." The women all shared another laugh as Glen blushed even harder.

Mouse sighed. "Well, I guess I've bugged yall long enough. And embarrassed poor lil' Glen here. Guess I'll sign off. One last thing Glen," she said in her "mother tone". Glen knew what was coming and silently begged the user that she wouldn't say it, not with Tabby here, not with _anyone_ around to hear it. He would just die with embarrassment if she did.

"I know what kids of your ages do when yall're gathered together like this in one house. No adults, plenty of rooms. If you _do_ get bold, as Tabby put it, make sure you use that lil' piece of hardware your daddy gave you for such an occasion. I know he told you how to use it, so just make sure you do, 'cause I ain't got no plans on bein' a grandmamma for a good many hours yet. I'm not forbidding you from messin' around, I know that'll do no good. But make sure you do whatever you can to avoid the ultimate consequences. 'Cause I ain't steppin' in ta save your sorry hide when Bob comes after ya for knockin' up his girl. That'll be all. Night, y'all." And ended the connection.

There was complete silence for a good 3 nanoseconds before Sherry and Tab burst out laughing, loud enough and hard enough to almost shatter a gamecube. Glen wasn't just blushing now. He was very nearly hyperventilating. The only comfort that he could draw from this, the most embarrassing moment of his life, was that Tabby seemed equally embarrassed at his mother's implications.

While he couldn't deny that this was the chance he was looking for to get a little closer and more intimate with Tabby, the only thoughts he'd had was of being able to maybe move his hands along her hips while actually kissing her for more than 5 nanoseconds. And his thoughts hadn't gone any further than _that_ and he'd testify that truth to Bob and Dot, all the way to his grave. He wasn't going to even take his shoes off while she was in the same room until he knew that Tabby was absolutely ready, and probably even a little longer than that, just to be safe.

Sherry and Tab were starting to get themselves under control now. Tab looked at Glen.

"Are you carrying that hardware on you, Glenny?" she asked in a slightly mocking tone, before collapsing into laughter again.

Glen sighed. "I think the popcorn is ready." He left the room. Tab noticed that Sherry had that strange look on her face again.

"What's wrong, Sherry." she asked her. Sherry looked at her and sighed.

"All day long I've been seeing that thing's weird face. And hearing those fingernails." Tab's eyebrows raised up.

"Fingernails? That's amazing you saying that. That made me remember the dream I had last night." Sherry turned on the couch so that she was completely facing Tab now, focusing on her.

"What did you dream?" she asked.

Tab shrugged. "I dreamed about this... I think it might have been a virus, with blue metal skin." Glen had walked back into the room while they had been talking, but neither of them noticed. Nor did they notice that as he was setting the popcorn bowl on the living room table, his head jerked up in surprise at Tab's last statement. Sherry also looked surprised and shocked.

"What about the fingernails?" she asked her cousin. Tab frowned as she remembered.

"Well he scraped these three big yellow fingernails along things in this big place that was kind of like a tower full of hallways. Actually, the nails didn't look like they belonged on his hand. His left hand looked relatively normal, with regular sized nails. But the ones on his right hand were big, jagged, like they didn't fit with the rest of his body's design. Almost like they had degraded until they looked like that. But they made a horrible noise when he scraped them, like...", she held one hand up and curved her fingers to look like claws and slowly scraped them on an imaginary wall. "Screeeeeech." she said, mimicking the sound.

Sherry drew her face a little closer to Tab's and softly, almost in a whisper, said, "Tabby, you dreamed about the same creep _**I**_ did.".

Glen seemed to shake himself out of a trance and passed them the popcorn bowl, saying, "That's impossible."

At that moment there was a screeching sound from out in the backyard. All three teens immediately turned their heads and looked out the kitchen window.

"What was that?" Sherry asked nervously. Glen was about to say that it was probably nothing, when the screeching sound came again. Like metal being scrapped across metal. They all looked at each other, then got up and went out the back door. Sherry and Tab stayed on the back porch while Glen moved across the yard to the back gate that led into the alley.

He stopped at the fence and yelled, "Whoever you are, you're going to get your ugly head caved in!" As if he was talking to someone whom he knew to be ugly, Sherry puzzled. Glen seemed as freaked by the screech as she and Tabby were, making her wonder again if he'd had a strange dream last night. Glen turned away from the fence and shrugged.

"Must have been a null." he said before being tackled from behind by a dark figure. Sherry and Tab both shrieked and jumped back as Steve Lane stood up laughing.

"A great tackle and the crowd goes wild." He said, before pulling Glen to his feet.

"What are you doing here?" Sherry asked him, sounding exasperated. Steve spread his arms wide. "I came to make up for our little disagreement yesterday." He walked over and put his arm around Sherry's shoulders, then looked back at her house.

"Your parents home?" he asked.

"Of course." Sherry said, before noticing that he had something in his other hand. "Oh, what's that?" she asked sarcastically. Steve held up the rake head in his hand and pretended to scrape it on something.

"Intense, huh." He tossed it back into the alley he'd found it in. "So what's going on here." he asked.

Glen, adrenaline still pumped from being tackled, responded, "Maybe a funeral, clickhead.". Steve pulled his switchblade knife out of his back pocket and snapped it open in front of Glen's face. Tab grabbed it from him and closed it.

"Its just a sleep-over date, Steve. Me and Sherry. Glen was just leaving." she said, and handed him back his knife.

He laughed and said to Sherry, "Did you see his face?" Sherry smiled a little and Glen just glared.

"Your parents aren't home, are they." Steve said. He grinned when she didn't answer.

"Come on." he said, leading her back to the house.

On the porch, he turned back to Tab and Glen. "We got her parent's bed, you guys got the rest.". Tab took Glen's hand and they followed them.

"Maybe we should get out of here." She said to him. Before he could answer, Sherry was standing in the doorway again.

"You guys are going to stick around aren't you? I mean, don't leave me alone with this lunatic." she said, jokingly. Steve came up behind her, grabbed her around the waist and put his hand over her mouth, pretending to abduct her as he carried her away, Sherry laughing all the way down the hall.

Tab leaned back against the door frame and looked at Glen. He leaned in close and kissed her. After parting, he started to lean in again for another, when she gave him a gentle push.

"Glen, don't. We're not here for ourselves, we're here for Sherry." Obviously disappointed, Glen frowned.

"Well what's the big deal about a stupid dream, anyway?" He said with irritation in his voice. Now Tab got a little angry herself.

"Because he was scary, that's why."

Glen sighed and nodded. "Yeah, fine." and he led her back into the house.

About twenty microseconds later, Glen was lying on the living room couch. Tab was in Sherry's room, Sherry and Steve were in her parent's room. It was still hard for him to believe that Sherry had willingly done that, but that was the thing about Steve. Since he'd moved to Mainframe it had been clear that he was one of those "bad boy" type guys. And Sherry, like any girl who had been the goody good all her life, enjoyed having the bad boy bring out just a little bit of the bad girl now and then.

Glen lay on the couch, staring at the ceiling, which was catching the glow of his hair static, trying to sleep. But he could hear Sherry and Steve. He could hear them so clearly that it was impossible to sleep. Maybe Tab could have helped him sleep. With what he could hear now, it was hard not to think of anything else.

"Morality sucks." he said to no one.

* * *

After a while, Sherry turned over and looked at Steve, who was starting to fall asleep.

"Alright, I forgive you." She said to him. Steve opened his eyes.

"No more fights?" he asked her. Sherry shook her head. Steve smiled.

"Good. And no more nightmares for either one of us then." He turned over. Sherry sat up.

"When did you have a nightmare?" She asked him. He looked over at her like it was a silly question.

"Guys can have nightmares too, you know.".

In Sherry's room Tab was trying to sleep, but the memory of her nightmare from the night before was making it difficult. She reached up and took the starfish above the bed off the wall and held it. Her aunt AndrAIa had once used this in battle, but Sherry told her hours ago that she used it as a lucky charm to keep bad dreams away. It was silly, but it made Tab feel better to think that maybe it could do the same for her. Feeling safer, she allowed herself to sleep at last.

* * *

Late in the night, Sherry jerked awake. She could have sworn that she'd heard something. She looked at Steve, but he didn't move. He hadn't heard anything. Dismissing it as nothing, she put her head back on the pillow and closed her eyes, when the sound came again. She jerked her head up and looked at her parents' bedroom window. Someone had just thrown a pebble at it. Getting out of the bed, she began walking towards the window, when another pebble was thrown at it. It bounced off with a tick sound. Sherry stepped up to the window and looked out across her backyard, to the alley that ran behind her neighborhood. Someone was out there, in the alley. She didn't know how she knew, but she knew just the same.

Another pebble was thrown at the window, this one hard enough to crack it, leaving a starburst pattern in the window. Sherry ran her finger over it, unable to believe that someone could throw a little pebble with such force. Suddenly a deep, suave voice whispered her name.

"Sherry." She didn't even look around. She knew that whoever had said her name was in the alley. How she could hear him whisper from here didn't even enter her mind. She took a step back, suddenly angry.

"Who do you think you are." she spoke in a whisper. "Whoever you are."

In Sherry's room, Tab was having a strange dream. At least she thought it was a dream, she seemed to be aware that it wasn't real without really waking herself up. She was dreaming that she was sleeping in this very bed, but that the wall above it where she had taken the starfish from was changing. It seemed to be expanding into a shape. As if the whole wall were made of latex and someone was pushing their face up against it from the other side, slowly leaning over her. Not liking where this was going, she willed herself awake. She looked at the wall above her head. Nothing. Relieved, she turned over on her side, holding the starfish tighter.

Standing at her back door, Sherry worked up the courage to walk into the backyard. The night air was a little cold, but she didn't feel like changing out of her nightdress.

"Hello?" She said, a little too quietly.

"Sherry." that deep voice came again. It had an almost elegant accent. Sherry came to the back gate that led into the alley. She scanned along the length of it, but couldn't see anyone.

"Sherry." said the voice again. Now Sherry was really getting scared, and that just made her madder.

"Who the Dell is that?!" she nearly shouted.

She walked into the alley, seeing nothing but trash bins and various junk. Still, she knew that someone was here. She started walking down the alley, looking into every shadow, trying to see who was calling her. Sherry jumped as a strange sound came from behind her, the sound of something coming towards her. She spun around and saw a trashcan lid roll out of the darkness. It began to roll in circles until it finally came to a spinning stop. Sherry breathed a sigh of relief, when the voice called her name again from behind her.

"Sherry."

She looked back the way she'd been going and saw him step out of the dark.

"Sherry." he said with a slight laugh in his voice as he stepped slowly into the light so she could see him.

It was the most horrifying sight in all the 17 hours of her life. Sherry watched as the virus (for he was indeed a virus) began walking towards her, his arms spread wide as if in greeting. He was tall, as tall as her father, with muscles of the same size. He had metal skin, metallic blue being the dominate color, with some green and red here and there. His eyes were also green and red and they seemed to glow with evil. On his chest he had a strange symbol that almost looked like a skull face. His head was strange shaped, elongated, almost like a football set long ways, with a big red crest on the back that almost looked like a fin.

His mouth seemed to have a few rows of jagged teeth, his lips highlighted that sickly green, with a large jutting chin. And on his right hand, he had enormous yellow claws, a thumb and 3 razor sharp fingers. They didn't seem to fit with the symmetrical flow of the rest of his body. His arms continued to spread wide until they stretched longer than any arm could possibly stretch, longer than his body was tall. He could have touched both sides of the alley at once. As he continued to walk forwards, he dragged the claws of his right hand across a metal trash dumpster, making an awful screeching sound.

Sherry seemed to be frozen to the spot from terror. Never before had she felt the presence of such evil. It seemed to consume the air. She wanted to yell at him to get away from her. She wanted to ask him politely if he would be so kind as to leave.

But all she could say was, "Help, daddy." The virus's smile spread wider on his elongated metal head. He raise his wicked right hand next to his face.

"_This_ is daddy." he said mockingly.

Sherry had had enough. She turned and ran back for her house as fast as she could. She looked over her shoulder and saw that he was chasing her, waving his hands around like he thought he was the bogeyman and was trying to scare her. She looked back the way she was running and ran smack into his chest. His metal skin hurt her face, but she paid no attention as she looked up into his burning eyes. He laughed and raised his right hand.

Sherry screamed and ran around, not bothering to wonder how he'd gotten in front of her when she'd just seen him following her. She ran through the gate into her back yard and to the back door.

"Sherry!" he yelled at her. She turned and saw him step out from behind the young directory tree near her mother's garden. The tree that was much too thin to hide his huge frame, yet he stepped from behind it anyway, seeming to appear from nowhere.

He held up his left hand and said. "Observe." Then he raised a single claw on his right hand and sliced all of his left fingers off at the knuckles!

Sickened, Sherry turned back to the door, about to throw it open and go screaming inside, when she was grabbed around the shoulders, lifted off the ground, and thrown down on the porch floor. She turned over as the virus climbed on top of her, pinning her down. He raised his right hand, pointing the claws at her.

In reflex, she reached up at his face, trying to scratch his eyes out with _her_ nails. But when she did, his skin seemed to stick to her nails and his whole face was ripped off like it was a paper covering or a mask. Beneath the face she had pulled off was another face, almost identical, but instead of blue it was pure black, with eyes that no longer had any green, just solid red. It looked almost like a webcreature. He opened his mouth and laugh his deep, sinister laugh and a long, thin, black tongue snaked out like a tentacle and wiggled in front of her face. Sherry began to scream like crazy then.

* * *

Steve sat up, suddenly wide awake as a great deal of screaming and thrashing came from beneath the covers of the bed. Startled, he jumped out of the bed, stared at the blankets that continued to thrash around. He reached over and pulled them off quickly to reveal Sherry, screaming and moving violently around on the bed. Her eyes were closed and she seemed to be have one whopper of a nightmare.

"Sherry! Wake up!" Steve yelled at her. He began to scream himself when her nightdress sudden split, revealing her bare torso. Then, three long, deep cuts ripped her open from her considerable upper chest all the way down to her navel. Her life-energy and code began pouring out from the wounds in lethal amounts.

Then Sherry's body was lifted off the bed and into the air by a force he couldn't see. She started kicking and writhing in the air as her body began to spin around.

"Sherry!" Steve yelled, unable to believe what he was seeing happening to her. He lunged forward to pull her back down out of the air, but her spinning body caught him in the head and knocked him into the corner of the room. Then Sherry stopped spinning and was thrown against the wall. She started screaming even louder as something began to pull her up the wall, leaving a trail of energy from her cuts.

Steve starred up in horror as she seemed to be forcefully dragged onto the ceiling. He could see that she was still asleep. Despite the cuts, being thrown against the wall and dragged across the spammed ceiling, despite all her screaming and kicking and thrashing, she was still asleep. And she seemed to be struggling with someone. Her energy had coated her whole body now, staining her nightdress and panties that sickly glowing blue. It was pouring down on the bed now, in torrents it seemed.

"Sherry!" He screamed, reaching his hand up to her, despite the fact that he was still lying back against the wall in the corner and couldn't reach her. He continued screaming her name as though it might help scare off her unseen attacker. And now she was screaming for him. Screaming his name and begging him to help her. And she was still asleep.

Finally, Sherry stopped screaming and kicking. She dropped from the ceiling, landing on the soaked bed with enough impact to splatter Steve with her energy, and her body rolled off onto the floor and lay still. Steve could only stare.

Tab and Glen, who had both been jerked out of sleep by the noise, both arrived at the door to Sherry's parents' bedroom at the same time. Tab began pounding on the door.

"Sherry! What's happened? Sherry! Let us in! Sherry!"

Then she heard Steve say from inside, "Who did this? If I find you I'll erase you! Who did this?!" Then there was the sound of breaking glass and then silence.

"Let me." Glen said, before backing up and throwing his body at the door. The door broke open and they both rushed inside.

Tab stopped, frozen with shock. Someone's life-energy was everywhere; the floor, the walls, the ceiling even. Her aunt and uncle's bed was soaked with it. And that heap on the floor by the bed. It took her a good thirty nanoseconds before she could come to terms with the fact that it was her cousin's body, and that it was the source of all the splattered code. Still in shock, she felt a cold breeze against her face and looked at the window, which had been broken open. Steve was gone.

* * *

Bob walked up the steps of the P.O., Sergeant Giga beside him.

"What have you got?" Bob asked him, already dreading how he was going to break this to Matrix and AndrAIa. Sergeant Giga looked at his notepad.

"Victim was Sherry Matrix, age 1.7, daughter of Enzo and AndrAIa Ma-"

"I already know that!" Bob replied sharply, cutting Giga off. "She's my niece for user's sake! I mean what happened. What did this?"

Giga looked up at him. "Well, something like a straight-razor was used, but nothing was found at the scene." The sprite and binome entered the Principle Office, CPU officers walking to and fro as they went about taking care of the tasks Phong assigned them. Bob turned and headed for one of the interrogation rooms. Stopping outside the door, Sergeant Giga handed him the notepad so he could look at the information on it.

"It looks like the victim's boyfriend is the perp. Steve Lane. He's like the cliché tragic musician type; arrested for drinking, brawling, that kind of thing." Giga informed him. Looking at the notepad, Bob shook his head.

"Terrific. What was she doing there?"

Giga looked surprised. "She lived there, Sir."

Bob gave him a look. "I don't mean her," he said, opening the door to the interrogation room. Dot and Tab were sitting at the table inside. "I mean you." Bob said to his daughter, before hugging her. He then turned and looked at Dot angrily. "What was she doing there?" He asked her sternly. Dot stared up at him for a moment.

"Hello to you too, Bob." She said simply. Bob shook his head.

"Dot." he replied, nodding at Giga to leave the room. Giga left, closing the door, and Bob sat down on the edge of the table.

Tab noted the way her parents looked at each other, feeling a sense of despair she'd come to feel whenever they were in a room together. They'd had this kind of bitterness, a look of blame and fault for each other for as long as she could remember, long before their file-separation. She had given up any hope of them ever getting back together over an hour ago. It wasn't going to happen and she no longer wasted her time wishing it would.

Bob sighed. "Alright, I'm not going to get into this now, user knows you need time." He said to his daughter. He continued to talk to Tab, but he kept his gaze on Dot as he went on. "But I'd sure like to know what you were doing shacked up with three other kids in the middle of the night. Especially a lunatic delinquent like Lane."

Tab looked at him. "Steve is not a lunatic, Daddy." Bob raisee his eyebrows.

"I don't suppose you have a sane explanation for what he did." Tab looked at the floor and rubbed her eyelids.

Dot looked up at Bob. "Apparently, he was crazy jealous. Tabby said they'd had a fight a couple of cycles ago."

Tab looked at her mother. "It wasn't all that serious." she told her. Dot turned to her.

"Maybe you don't think the murder of your cousin is serious." she said in a somewhat patronizing tone. Tabby nearly broke into tears.

"How can you say I don't take her death seriously?!" Bob looked daggers at Dot. Dot turned her eyes down in error. Wiping her eyes, Tab cleared her throat.

"Look, all I meant was that their fights weren't that serious." After taking a few deep breaths, she spoke again. "You know, Sherry, she dreamed that this was going to happen."

Bob frowned. "What?" Tab looked up at him.

"She had a nightmare, that someone was trying to kill her." She looked at her mother. "That's why we were there mom. She just didn't want to sleep alone." Now Tab did cry.

* * *

_To Be Continued_


End file.
